Master of Puppets
by Zanuth
Summary: [NaruXHina][AU] Behold, Uzuamki Naruto: The Master of Puppets!
1. Chapter 1

**Master of Puppets**

* * *

Chapter 1

It is quite early in the morning when we begin our story, around 5:23 to be exact, as the sounds of tinkering could be heard throughout Naruto's apartment.

What is he doing, you ask? Well, let's take a look!

We enter Naruto's apartment as the sounds only become louder, and a few clicking sounds enter the symphony of disorder. We enter his room as we see the blonde fiddling with what seems to be a human-sized combat puppet, testing it with a single hand; chakra strings gliding softly from his fingertips as the vaguely humanoid figure dances in mid air.

Speaking of the young Uzumaki, we pane to his attire; it is mostly a mesh of orange netting-style clothes and cloth covering most of his body, the cloth covering his torso and legs, while the fishnet covers his arms other then a pair of black arm-guards made of hard-leather. His pants puff out very slightly as the ends are tucked in to wrappings that disappear into his sandals. There is also a pair of snowboarding style goggles on his eyes, the part covering his eyes a light shade of orange as well. Also as a note; he has a large, playful grin on his whiskered face as he plays around with his creation, seeing as he is one of the very few puppet-users in Konoha.

At the mention of puppets, we now pane to the blonde boy's tool of trade: given the name **Goryo **by his blonde-headed creator, is looks mostly like a demonic version of a human warrior, with sharp horns jutting from a wild grey mane and a painted face, intimidating tusks jutting from an open mouth, the mouth appears open-able, more then likely for use of a kunai trap hidden inside the head, the torso is made of a very tough chakra-enhanced type of wood and armored, with small slots at points for use of a senbon trap. Its arms are long and slightly lanky, with katana pointing out from clawed hands and kunai lining its forearms, it appears that the katana blades are able to slide in or out of its arms, and the kunai to either be used to slash close up, or shoot at the opponent and appear to be poison-able, though none is present. Its legs, while thin, are quite sturdy, but have openings along them; with a slight glint within them hinting to what could be another trap, the legs lead to clawed feet. As an extra note, there seems to be a large grey overlay of grey hair-like substance across its shoulders and down its back, though its purpose simply seems to be for appearance.

The blonde boy smiled brightly at his puppet, before once again looking at the plans he had drawn out of it, which were simply labeled **'Goryo – 1.0'**, he had spent a lot of time planning out the puppet, especially both it's appearance and the more intricate part of the plans, although the boy found it ironic that he named his puppet after a vengeful spirit when he himself wanted to become a protector. Nevertheless, he cherished it, thinking back as he chuckled, thinking it strangely fortunate that the more cruel instructors forbade him from joining the sparing, in case he was actually good. In truth, he would not have been very skilled at all: Seeing as his puppet wasn't yet truly complete, before now at any rate.

Shaking his head from his thoughts, he then stops playing around with his puppet and wraps it up, yet allowing one straw to stay loose as a make-shift sling to carry it around. He makes his way out of his small apartment, locking his door and heading to the academy.

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The Academy

We enter to see Naruto walk into the gates, seemingly the only one here; but we can see more than the blonde, can't we? Indeed, if one looks closely enough into the scenery, one can see the shy Hyuuga Hinata tailing him with more stealth then is usually possible for the young Heiress. Idly; she wonders what the wrapped item on his back was, though she doesn't think too much of it, seeing as her thoughts are irrevocably, once again drawn to the one holding said item, and a light blush coats her features as she looks on at him with a slightly lustful, longing look in her lavender eyes… Only to nearly faint as he notices her hiding not far from him and proceeds to run to her shouting a merry greeting; in truth he found the girl to be cute, and probably one of the only people in his age group to treat him with respect and (in her case) quite a lot of friendliness.

"Ohayo, Hinata-chan! How are things?" The blonde boy says with a friendly grin, his sunshine-blonde hair waving in the breeze in a carefree manner as he scratches the back of his head in a slightly awkward manner. Immediately, the shy girl begins to blush a bright shade of pink, poking her fingers together and ducking her head slightly in a shy manner, while attempting to stutter out a simple 'fine' or 'good', while preferably, she'd straight out say something along the lines of 'Very well, Thank-you; Naruto-kun! Would you like to go out with me this afternoon after the tests?' At which point, in her fantasies, he would soundly approve and carry her off into the sunset…

Unfortunately, however, fantasies are just that, and while something similar is possible to happen, it would seem destined not to happen now, seeing as she manages to mutter a "G-good…", before her blushing becomes too much for her, and she simply faints. Luckily to be caught by the nearby (now confused) Uzumaki, however, he did once again find her endearing, albeit slightly odd. With a slight sigh, he picks her up in his arms and sits down by a tree with her in his lap, passing the time by simply looking around, most looking was simply re-directed to Hinata's face at one point or another however.

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About an hour later

We now see Hinata slowly waking up from her 'nap', so see she is sitting quite comfortably in the lap of our favorite Uzumaki, thinking it is simply another dream, she doesn't hesitate to lean over and kiss him soundly on the lips and snuggle into his chest, leaving the blonde boy blushing profusely, and nearly faint as he hears a soft 'Aishiteru' come from Hinata as she nuzzles her face into him.

We now look at Naruto, who is sound brought to full attention as his eyes widen to an almost inhuman degree, along with his face taking a rather nice shade of deep red that almost seems to set his hair alight from the heat he can feel in his cheeks. Mustering what he could of his courage, he looks down to Hinata's face, which was now looking at him with unbound adoration, and barely managing to squeak out a light "H…. H-Hinata-chan… d-do you really m-mean that…?" he then gulped a little, inside he was hoping what she said was genuine

At this, her eyes shoot wide open, instantly realizing what had happened, and almost shot back like a rocket, if not for the fact that she was still being held in a pair of arms. So she then swiftly went for the latter option; she fainted again.

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The classroom

Another while later, we see Naruto and Hinata sitting next to one another in the classroom, having had many 'trial and error' spots where Naruto had indeed gotten to the fact that what she said what in fact genuine, but also having asked her out after the day of class.

They look to the front of the class, sometimes looking to one another then blushing as they catch each other at times; nevertheless, they catch the fact that Iruka had told them that the genin evaluations tests would be based on sparring, then silently walked with the rest of the class outside. Another note is that while everyone else was looking elsewhere, an inconspicuous Naruto silently and gently took Hinata's hand, (albeit awkwardly) gaining a slight blush from both of them.

Outside, the spars were held, the winners of the spar automatically passing, and the loser going over an evaluation of ability displayed over the course of the fight.

And as if on queue, Naruto's name was one of the first called out, along with that of Inuzuka Kiba, one of the most arrogant students in the academy

* * *

Sparring Field"You know, you should give up now; before you get hurt, Dobe!" Kiba sneered arrogantly, hoping to get a reaction from the blonde. 

To this, Naruto growled menacingly, before taking the wrapped package from his back and slamming it onto the ground and starts to unwrap it, but not before Kiba rushes forward

"Don't think I'll let you use whatever that is! I'll end this quickly! After all, you're not worth the effort of going all out on anyway!" He cackled as he rammed a crashing elbow into the blonde's stomach, sending him crashing into a tree, and the wrapped bundle to the ground.

Chuckling darkly, he charged forward to the still smoking crash site, intending on making Naruto's loss a painful one. But as he send a punch flying, the fist was caught in an inhumanly strong fist, and as he looked up to see the owner of the new hand, what he saw made a chill go down his spine…

And it wasn't Naruto.

The mild Genjutsu now lifted, the owner of the hand, now revealed to be **Goryo**, sends the dog-user flying with a vicious back-hand, and allowing the kunai blades on its forearm to slash his torso.

To say that everyone was surprised was an understatement, at first everyone though Kiba was going to win, but now Naruto was nowhere to be seen, and now this… _thing_ was in his place, and had sent one of the strongest students of the graduating class flying with a simple punch. They were once again shocked to see that the 'package' was now shifting, and a familiar hand shot out of the wrapping.

"Hehehe… Stupid dog! Doesn't know when to shut his mouth…" Naruto said as he stood up and quickly dusted himself off with his free hand, while his other hand pulled the chakra strings that were connected to the puppet, making it fly to him. Linking up his other hand to **Goryo** with chakra strings so he could use the puppet with more efficiency, he then got into a ready stance, and made the katana blades in the puppet's arms slide out silently, the puppet simply floating mid-air like the specter it was designed from.

Kiba slowly stood up, seething that he'd been had so easily, and that he'd been cut like that as well. With a growl, he stood at his full height, as if trying to intimidate the clearly unimpressed Uzumaki "Tch… That doesn't prove a thing! You're still a weak little Dobe, and that's all you'll ever be Uzumaki!" He roared as he charged blindly, jumping in the air and beginning to spin

"**Tsuuga!"** he yelled again and attempted to slam into the puppet-user, only for him to narrowly dodge, and giving him a free shot for his puppet to fire a kunai from a hidden trap, concealed under the fur covering on it's back.

Naruto grinned "Kiba! What kind of idiot are you?! You're giving me free shots at every turn!"

With a growl of rage, and thinking that that damned puppet of his was probably out of traps, he once again charged forward, though this time without even using **Tsuuga**, Naruto simply shook his head slightly muttering something that sounded like 'I've got him now…'

Slightly confused at the remark, Kiba faltered in his charge a little, only for a horde of senbon needles to shoot from **Goryo**'s chest and pin him to a post, and a kunai to shoot from it's now open mouth and implant itselfinto his right shoulder. Howling in rage and pain, he was about to move and try to remove the tools, but a katana blade from the puppet's arm at his neck stopped his movement.

Everyone was not staring wide-eyed at the scene: Inuzuka Kiba, infamous for being almost on the same level of combat as 'rookie of the year' Uchiha Sasuke, had just been pummeled, by none other than the one who was given the title of 'Dobe' by both the Uchiha and Inuzuka boys, even though the official dead last was Nara Shikamaru. And what also shocked most is that the student who was infamous for having sub-par chakra control was using the **Kugutsu no Jutsu** of all things, which requires at least advanced control.

Still, there was a single person clapping, albeit timidly, one of the ones standing in the front at that. She had a small smile on her lightly blushing face as her lavender eyes looked at him adoringly. Having spotted her as the one clapping, Naruto gave her a warm smile, then turned to give the still stunned Iruka an annoyed look "Well?" he said, slight irritation evident in his voice.

Shaking his head quickly, he smiles approvingly at the boy "Yare, yare! I suppose things surprise people every day! Shousha – Uzumaki Naruto!" He bellowed, snapping people out of their respective trances as Naruto pulls back **Goryo** and wraps him back up again, going back to his spot next to Hinata, though allowing the Puppet's head to stick out the top as he put the kunai back in it's place after being cleaned, along with the senbon needles.

The rest of the matches were rather uneventful, other then the fact that upon Sasuke's match, the entire fan-club formed up a make-shift cheerleading squad, nothing really happened.

* * *

Back in the classroom

Naruto grinned as he sat in his seat, having been one of the first to get back in, he'd also been one of the only ones to get his hands on one of the very few black-clothed hitai-ate and quickly tied it around his waist like a belt, having already had his goggles over his eyes, At the moment, he was looking over **Goryo** to see if there was any way he could upgrade it –

"Hmm… Maybe I could add some armor to the arms and legs, what do you think, Hinata-chan?" The blonde asked the lavender-eyed girl, who was currently sitting on his right, and wearing a light blush as she timidly looked over to him and his rather intimidating puppet

"A-ano… m-maybe something o-on the b-back…?" She suggested shy, twiddling her fingers

he looked thoughtful for a moment, then grinned widely "Genius! I can add wings or a wire trap!" He beamed at her, giving her a hug on impulse, causing the poor girl to faint on the spot. With a slight sigh at her lack of consciousness, he gently lay her down on her desk and began writing down ideas and sketches.

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**This'll be the project that I'll be working on until (I'll probably still work on it afterwards as well) I get Untold Story and Interesting Compromise into gear.**

**Please review plentifully w**

**Zanuth**


	2. Chapter 2

**For reasons I shall refuse to claim, I am not going to add in their date, I may add things like that later on, but this is not a romance-based story, this is action/adventure damn it! Now, there will be mentions of it, we won't see it happen, we will be skipping to the next day! Seishun!**

**I also apologize profusely for not updating sooner (I let the other puppet-user story get ahead of me XP) and I hopefully might be able to get chapters up sooner**

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Chapter 2

Naruto woke up with a grin on his face, idly wondering who his team-mates were to be; shrugging the thought from his mind for the moment, he got out of bed and started preparing for the day. As he was putting on his fishnet undershirt, he was already making a short breakfast, a cup of ramen really, but that was enough for him.

Now fully dressed and eaten, he headed out the door and to the academy, **Goryo** once again slung on his back. The previous day was rather irritating, seeing as he had to take a picture of himself for his ninja license; though that in itself wasn't the irritating thing, (He had gotten a rather good shot of him in an arms crossed in front of him, fingers charged with chakra strings and **Goryo** floating in a rather intimidating fashion behind him)

Rather, it was an annoying brat who had followed him the rest of the day trying to make him teach him the **Kugutsu no Jutsu**, saying that it was his sworn duty in service to the Hokage to teach his grandson whatever he could… Instead, Naruto though what he did do was a service to all mankind: He bonked the boy over the head with an unused puppet arm and went along his merry way.

He shook his head from the rather entertaining memory as he noticed he had arrived at the academy, walking through the pathway as students eyed the bandaged package he slung onto his pack slightly warily; The overwhelming victory over Kiba still fresh in their minds. As he continued walking, he spotted Hinata on the way, giving her a smile and a merry wave, he walked up to her. He wasn't sure how he exactly felt about the girl, but time would tell, he supposed.

Once the starting bell rung, they went in; sitting in the same places they sat the testing day, and most of them, as per usual among the graduates; effectively tuned out Iruka's long, more importantly boring speech. It was rather odd, and a bit scary, now that he thought about it; how human speech can sound so much like static after a few minutes of boredom, shaking his head from his thoughts, he looked up when Iruka said something about challenges, but went back to his semi-snoozing state when he realized the man was simply talking about life or death situation, nothing really important… Like Ramen…

He was once again snapped from his thoughts when he was sent flying from his seat by a charging Sakura and Ino competing for the spot next to Sasuke; sadly, the blonde was sent careening through a wall, and ended up being quite unconscious as a panicked Iruka and a worried Hinata went rushing to his side, trying to wake him up until they realized he'd simply gotten a nasty blow to the head… Well, Iruka stopped worrying, Hinata though stayed by him as she waited for him to wake up.

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Naruto's mind

Naruto sat up groggily in what appeared to be underground sewer tunnels, the walls looked worn, and was partially covered in moss, and they also appeared to have some archaic puppet designs carved into them that he vaguely remembered reading about in his early childhood when he first began working on **Goryo**, suppressing the urge to shudder from the intimidating quality of the place, he was driven on by intrigue to learn where exactly the hell he was. Walking forward, he was startled by the sound of a low rumbling that was coming from one of the corridors to his left; going down said corridor, he was shocked and awed at the sight laid down before him: A massive set of bronze gates that seemed to be composed of cog-works to keep it locked from either side that seemed to turn eternally, neither gaining or losing speed or rhythm, and two massive puppet-like hands meet from either side in the middle, and seemed to be forced closed by but a single piece of paper that read "Seal".

Interested, he walked up tentatively to the door, hoping to get a glimpse of whatever was inside. Instead, it seemed whatever was in the gate got a glimpse of him first; a giant set of claws lunging at him attested to this fact, they fell short however by a few feet and dragged themselves back in, it was then that a massive, hulking figure seemed to prowl it's way to the door, prowling probably wouldn't do it much good however; as Naruto guessed it was at least the size of 30 large animals stacked on top of each other in a jumbled heap. Much to his surprise, the bloody-colored monster seemed more amused then anything at the terrified expression that coated Naruto's face at the current point in time.

"Y-you're… It can't be! Didn't you-"

"**Die? Ha! No, a being such as me cannot simply just 'die', let alone to a mortal cactus-head such as that fool of a Hokage that sealed me into your stomach…" **The figure, now revealed as the infamous Kyuubi no Kitsune seemed to growl under his throat about something the boy couldn't make out; the voice of the demon alone would be enough to make most people shudder in fear; It sounded much like the rumbling of an earthquake, and it was as if the many voices of eons of evils all speaking as one, making it sound as if one were talking to many people at once rather then a single being.

Attempting to shake the terror from his system, one thought came to mind; he voiced it somewhat immediately; "Why did you attack Konoha? Were you bored or something, or what?"

The ages-old demon looked up from his musing, it's usually frightening feral-red eyes actually seemed… embarrassed about something? He hesitated, but for a moment, before taking what seemed to be a sigh, though came out as a large wind that nearly knocked the boy over as the wind gushed from the fox-demon's mouth.

"**It's quite the story, kit; and you'll probably never look at me the same way again… But, here goes nothing…" **And so the demon began…

Flashback

_It seemed about midnight, seeing as a full moon was about right above them as the great and might Kyuubi no Kitsune marched with not ungrounded confidence towards Konohagakure no Sato, a feral grin playing on his demonic features as he stood proudly a few miles from the gates as literally swarms of shinobi ran out of the city to counter Kyuubi's advance. It was around that point that the Yondaime Hokage marched out of the city to meet the demon head on, though he decided to talk to it before he charged blindly to see what it wanted_

"_Mighty Kyuubi! What is it that you want from us so badly that you would come so directly to us?" The Hokage cried, using most of the air in his lungs so the great demon could hear him._

_The great demon simply smirked at this; he'd been preparing this speech all week._

"_**I, Kyuubi, demand all your bitches in return for leaving this place unharmed, give me the bishies, and I will leave in peace!"**__ The demon roared, despite the threatening tone of voice, the demand in itself made many of the surrounding ninja snicker to themselves at such a vulgar request, the Kunoichi however glared at the perverted demon as it grinned in an oddly lecherous fashion at them._

_Namikaze Minato could only stare in awe at the demon; this had definitely been on the list for the things he expected the demon to say, still; he didn't really need to think that much for the response:_

"_Never! Charge! For the bitches!" The Hokage cried as he leap at the demon, his ever-loyal shinobi shortly following over what seemed to be a stupid matter_

Flashback end

When the demon was done telling his story, Naruto blinked… and blinked…. And blinked some more, before finally turning a blink look to the fox.

"You attacked Konoha because you were sexually frustrated since you couldn't get some…?" He asked, quite bluntly.

"**Yep!"** The demon replied rather curtly, as its head lay comfortable on its paws.

Naruto's head then dropped, muttering something about being stuck with perverts all the time as his form began to fade from the prison; the demon sadly noting that he was going to temporarily lose the only company he had in 12 years until he could get a thought-wave communication link going.

* * *

Back in the classroom

Naruto awoke, (again) to find himself at his desk again, having apparently been put there while he was unconscious, and a worried Hinata fussing over him with surprisingly little regard to her usual shyness as she was carefully putting on another bandage to his damaged head with all the gentleness of a dove; a serene smile coming to her features as she noticed his eyes begin to flutter open with a bit of a dazed expression on his face; the pain of being thrown through a wall finally hitting him.

"Ugh… Anyone get the license plate on that fangirl…?" He asked only half-conscious, and barely taking note of Hinata's giggle at the comment.

His mind quickly went on alert when he heard Iruka begin calling the teams; he didn't pay much attention to most of the teams, once his name was called however…

"Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura and Uchiha Sasuke will be put into team 7-"

At those words alone, Naruto simply passed out again, banging his head on the table as Hinata began fussing over him again

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**Ta-da! Sorry about the delay, I've been lazy, I've also been hard at work trying to get my World of Warcraft account back up, so I've had some things to do.**

**Ja ne!**

**P.S. I tweaked it a bit for the sake of understanding, in case some people don't know what 'Bishies', I consider it a shofter version of the word bitch, and not so... derogative**


End file.
